Heavy Storms Damage Property In Western Arkansas, Chaffee Crossing

Heavy Storms Damage Property In Western Arkansas, Chaffee Crossing

BRIAN D. SANDERFORD TIMES RECORD Firefighters with the Fort Smith Fire Department perform a secondary search in one of two buildings at Chaffee Crossing that collapsed as thunderstorms moved through the area on Wednesday, July 23, 2014. Battalion Chief Chris Scherff said one of the destroyed buildings along Collier Street was occupied, but no injuries were reported. Power lines were down and other buildings in the area were also damaged.

Heavy Storms Damage Property In Western Arkansas, Chaffee Crossing

BRIAN D. SANDERFORD TIMES RECORD A sign at Stella's Nails, 6811 Rogers Ave. was blown over as thunderstorms moved through the area on Wednesday, July 23, 2014. Power lines and trees were reported down and blocking several roads during the afternoon storm.

Heavy Storms Damage Property In Western Arkansas, Chaffee Crossing

BRIAN D. SANDERFORD TIMES RECORD Traffic backs up along Massard Road after two lanes, near Phoenix Ave., were blocked by a downed tree as thunderstorms moved through the area on Wednesday, July 23, 2014.

Severe storms rolled through western Arkansas on Wednesday, toppling trees, knocking down power lines and damaging or destroying a number of buildings at Chaffee Crossing and the Fort Chaffee Maneuver Training Center.

A cluster of thunderstorms developed along a cold front north of the area Wednesday, producing complexes that quickly moved south, said meteorologist Peter Snyder with the National Weather Service in Tulsa.

One complex started in southeast Kansas, moving south, while another developed in the boot heel of Missouri and headed southwest. They merged right in the Fort Chaffee area, where most of the area’s damage was reported, Snyder said.

At its peak, wind speeds reached in excess of 70-80 mph. Straight-line winds caused most of the damage, although meteorologists detected some circular motion in the pattern, Snyder said.

“Sometimes when we have a gust front moving at this speed, you get these small spin-ups,” he said. “They might develop in one volume scan of the radar, and it happens so quickly that you don’t have time to put a warning on it.”

Snyder deferred from calling the weather event a tornado.

“It’s possible; we don’t know yet,” he said. “It’s going to take somebody to go out there and take a look at it and look at the patterns to see if it was a possible tornado.”

Lt. Col. Keith Moore with the Arkansas National Guard said damage at Fort Chaffee seemed indicative of some type of rotation that had occurred in the area. The storm damaged about 20 buildings spanning four blocks at the main post, he said.

No injuries were reported. Some vehicles had windows broken out, but the training center did not sustain any major loss of equipment or totaled buildings, Moore said.

Most of the buildings damaged or destroyed at Chaffee Crossing belonged to the Redevelopment Authority and were insured, said executive director Ivy Owen.

Owen toured the damage Wednesday evening, saying that cleanup likely will take a long time.

Affinity Chemical, a company that manufactures aluminum sulfate at Chaffee Crossing, sustained heavy damage in the storm, Owen said.

Will Eckelhoff, owner of Barling Boat Sales, and his employees cleaned up the site of one of the destroyed buildings. The company was renting the property to use as storage for boat parts and scraps. Eckelhoff and his crew were able to salvage most of the company’s property.

On the other side of Fort Smith at the corner of North B and North 16th streets, lightning struck a three-story house and ignited a fire that prompted firefighters to rush to the scene. The call came in about 2:47 p.m., said Fort Smith fire marshal Ronnie Rogers.

Firefighters searched the house, which had no one inside, and extinguished the flames that had emerged from the south corner of the home. After about 10 minutes, the flames were under control and firefighters contained the damage to the second and third floors, although water seeped to the bottom floor, Rogers said.

The call came in the middle of several other reports of tree damage and power lines down as the storm system moved. Several traffic signals in Fort Smith went offline, with thousands in western Arkansas losing power to their homes. As of 9 p.m., more than 3,500 residents in Fort Smith were without power, with more than 2,400 out in Dyer and 1,100 outages in Van Buren, according to an OG&E outages map.

Emergency manager Dennis Gilstrap estimated that at one point, nearly 10,000 outages had occurred in Crawford County. Most of the structural damage was near Eastgate Place between Van Buren and Alma, where Gilstrap saw roof shingles strewn about, broken trees and downed power lines, he said.

The north side of Ozark saw structural and home damage, along with damage seen west of the city limits along U.S. 64. Residents in the area reported rotation in the clouds, although authorities there had not received confirmation of such activity, said Franklin County EMS director Randy Boren.